JeffB
Legend
I have attempted to interest, but not push my nearly 12 year old son to try D&D for the past , yikes...5/6 years. I have purchased the WOTC 3.0 box (later gave it away) & 3.5 black dragon set for him, both 4E sets, I have my Moldvay Cook Marsh books still, holmes, S&W WB, and Frank Mentzer even sent me the copies of his old B & X books with notes/eratta, when I inquired about finding a a reasonably priced set on Dragonsfoot a few years back (he offered them for free, and autographed them for my boy, but I sent him some cash via paypal- helluva guy- Thanks again Frank!)
Until yesterday nothing had met with any success. The 3.0 box, 3.5 box, and 4E boxes got nothing more than a casual perusal of the contents, and have been sitting on my shelf since purchase (I gave the 3.0 box to someone else for their kid). He did crack open the Mentzer basic books, and attempted the choose your own adventure, but nothing ever clicked,. Of course he is a video game freak, loves HALO, and Pokemon, and whatnot- he understand alot of things in video games come from D&D, but really he's never given the game a second thought.
Yesterday, we had several hours to kill, and instead of our normal Battleship or Stratego game, I told him we would be playing a new game. After careful looking over all the sets I had laying around, I figured the 3.5 set would be best-he would probably like the minis, and the character sheets would offer enough "kewl stuff" for the PCs, unlike the older versions of the game yet without info overload like the 4E character sheets/cards have. I set the game up, and told him when the TV show he was watching was over, to head into the dining room.
Bottom line- he had a blast. I had a blast. He got the hang of the game pretty quick, and I offered him newbie pointers and advice at times. at first he struggled with having so many choices compared to limited options in a video game, and he verbalized his frustration, but after some quick banter, he got the hang of things, and really started to enjoy himself- he even got into roleplaying when I told him he could do so in 3rd person instead of 1st (In addition to the lady in the magic mirror, I added some some RP bits after he went back to town for a rest and to return the Baron's ring for his reward before proceeding further into the dungeon). There was one combat where he jumped out of his seat when I gave a nasty troglodyte type noise when the trog surprised Regdar
some observations
1) I was worried that the less..err....inspired.. combat situations of the 3.5 box (which is pretty much just a bunch of dungeon rooms) would prove boring to him. the 4E combat encounters are definitely more interesting- however being a complete novice, he was excited as hell with all 4 encounters we played out! My jaded nature coming through I guess. He was pooping bricks fighting 2 Kobolds in the very first encounter!
2) I am not a fan of minis and grids, and never have been- I do not own any minis and never have. But I felt for him, it would help, as it would be more "board gamey". he loved it of course, and frankly I really enjoyed it as well. He DID a few times move his minis around like pawns outside of combat, and I reminded him that the minis and map are there really for combat, and he should be using description for things outside of combat- he took to that immediately after I explained it, and proceeded to continually improve his descriptions of how he was searching/what he was searching, who was where on the map.
3) He handled all 4 PCs pretty well overall, and eventually learned what each character was good at, and not so good at (he sent his sorcerer off by himself in melee, and dang near got the guy killed by a couple of kobolds)
4) He learned to ALWAYS search for traps before opening a chest- his first chest he just had lidda open it willy nilly, and a poisoned arrow trap struck her squarely in the chest. Luckily Eberk was able to heal her before she hit -10 HP
Anyhoo- I know alot of us loudly protest that Basic sets of recent years have been lacking as a gateway to the game, and have no replay value, overpriced, and whatnot. I have been extremely vocal of this myself over the years- but that "horrible" Black Dragon boxed set got my son hooked. As I won't see him for a couple weeks (his mother and I divorced many years ago, and I am going on vacay this week), we won't be able to play, but the whole ride home to his mom's we talked about the game, and he wondered what was beyond the double doors he had just opened when I called it a night (cliffhanger)!
Until yesterday nothing had met with any success. The 3.0 box, 3.5 box, and 4E boxes got nothing more than a casual perusal of the contents, and have been sitting on my shelf since purchase (I gave the 3.0 box to someone else for their kid). He did crack open the Mentzer basic books, and attempted the choose your own adventure, but nothing ever clicked,. Of course he is a video game freak, loves HALO, and Pokemon, and whatnot- he understand alot of things in video games come from D&D, but really he's never given the game a second thought.
Yesterday, we had several hours to kill, and instead of our normal Battleship or Stratego game, I told him we would be playing a new game. After careful looking over all the sets I had laying around, I figured the 3.5 set would be best-he would probably like the minis, and the character sheets would offer enough "kewl stuff" for the PCs, unlike the older versions of the game yet without info overload like the 4E character sheets/cards have. I set the game up, and told him when the TV show he was watching was over, to head into the dining room.
Bottom line- he had a blast. I had a blast. He got the hang of the game pretty quick, and I offered him newbie pointers and advice at times. at first he struggled with having so many choices compared to limited options in a video game, and he verbalized his frustration, but after some quick banter, he got the hang of things, and really started to enjoy himself- he even got into roleplaying when I told him he could do so in 3rd person instead of 1st (In addition to the lady in the magic mirror, I added some some RP bits after he went back to town for a rest and to return the Baron's ring for his reward before proceeding further into the dungeon). There was one combat where he jumped out of his seat when I gave a nasty troglodyte type noise when the trog surprised Regdar
some observations
1) I was worried that the less..err....inspired.. combat situations of the 3.5 box (which is pretty much just a bunch of dungeon rooms) would prove boring to him. the 4E combat encounters are definitely more interesting- however being a complete novice, he was excited as hell with all 4 encounters we played out! My jaded nature coming through I guess. He was pooping bricks fighting 2 Kobolds in the very first encounter!
2) I am not a fan of minis and grids, and never have been- I do not own any minis and never have. But I felt for him, it would help, as it would be more "board gamey". he loved it of course, and frankly I really enjoyed it as well. He DID a few times move his minis around like pawns outside of combat, and I reminded him that the minis and map are there really for combat, and he should be using description for things outside of combat- he took to that immediately after I explained it, and proceeded to continually improve his descriptions of how he was searching/what he was searching, who was where on the map.
3) He handled all 4 PCs pretty well overall, and eventually learned what each character was good at, and not so good at (he sent his sorcerer off by himself in melee, and dang near got the guy killed by a couple of kobolds)
4) He learned to ALWAYS search for traps before opening a chest- his first chest he just had lidda open it willy nilly, and a poisoned arrow trap struck her squarely in the chest. Luckily Eberk was able to heal her before she hit -10 HP
Anyhoo- I know alot of us loudly protest that Basic sets of recent years have been lacking as a gateway to the game, and have no replay value, overpriced, and whatnot. I have been extremely vocal of this myself over the years- but that "horrible" Black Dragon boxed set got my son hooked. As I won't see him for a couple weeks (his mother and I divorced many years ago, and I am going on vacay this week), we won't be able to play, but the whole ride home to his mom's we talked about the game, and he wondered what was beyond the double doors he had just opened when I called it a night (cliffhanger)!
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